


Heartbeat

by nectarimperial



Category: Tales of Xillia
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-21
Updated: 2015-07-21
Packaged: 2018-04-10 10:57:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4389131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nectarimperial/pseuds/nectarimperial
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Your OTP listening to each other’s heartbeat.</p><p>Sometimes Jude didn't know where his own heartbeat ended and Alvin's began.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heartbeat

**Author's Note:**

  * For [healing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/healing/gifts).



> written as a bedtime story for healing. ilu you're the sweetest ; 3;

The first time he met Alvin, he wondered if it was normal for his heart to beat so fast as he slung his arms around his shoulders. He wondered if it was normal to hear it pounding in his ears when Alvin leaned close to his face. He wondered and wondered and _wondered_ if Alvin felt it, too.

But he didn’t have to wonder for long.  
  
“Hey, kid—you okay?” He asked, nonchalant and careless, his hand still resting on Jude’s chest from where they’d crashed on the ship. “Your heart’s goin’ a mile a minute.”  
  
“Yeah,” Jude said, out of breath, “I thought I was going to die.”  
  
Taking a step back, Alvin shot him a wink over his shoulder, flicking his brown hair from his face, and walked over to where Milla was standing by the railing, “Danger will do that to you.”

 

 

 

“Don’t go,” Jude said, lying with his cheek pressed into Alvin’s chest in the Sharilton Inn. “Milla needs—I need,” _you_ he mouthed and trailed off, squeezing his eyes shut and burrowing his face into the crook of Alvin’s arm. He could hear the dull thud of Alvin’s heart and it sounded nothing like his own, racing underneath his ribcage.  
  
Maybe that was why it was so easy for him to leave.  
  
Running a hand through Jude’s hair, Alvin chuckled, “Don’t rely on a mercenary, kid, we go where the work is.” He wrapped his arms around Jude’s torso and squeezed tightly.

Jude wondered if it was his imagination when he felt Alvin’s heart skip a beat.

 

 

 

Alvin’s hands were shaking as they lay side by side in Xian Du. Sometimes he reached his hand out to run his thumb over Jude’s cheek, but he remained silent, his brown eyes clouded with emotions that Jude couldn’t discern in the darkness.  
  
“I still trust you,” Jude whispered, almost too quiet for Alvin to hear, but he didn’t bother repeating himself. He didn’t bother repeating himself because he could feel the way Alvin’s heart raced when his fingertips touched his skin, feel the tension rolling like electricity between their bodies and he knew that whether or not Alvin heard him, he could feel it too.  
  
He could feel that Jude still trusted him.  
  
Closing the distance, Alvin crashed their lips together biting on Jude’s lower lip frenzied and anxious, murmuring ‘ _I know, I know_.’

 

 

 

Alvin’s heartbeat was racing just as fast as it had in Xian Du when he wraps his hand around Jude’s mouth in the ice caverns, whispering for him to be quiet as they waited for the Exodus agent to pass by their hiding spot. Jude doesn’t protest, hooking his hands around Alvin’s arm, and he can’t help but feel safe, secure _,_ even knowing he shouldn’t think that way.  
  
But he does, the dull ache in his chest reminding him that he’d missed Alvin. He’d missed being close to him.  
  
When the Exodus Agent passed, Alvin pushed Jude against the boulder and held his face in his hands, kissing his cheeks, nose, lips—anything he was able. His breath and his lips were warm and familiar and the anger Jude held onto after the war melts, even in the freezing temperatures.  
  
“I’m glad you’re okay,” Alvin said, looking Jude in the eyes.  
  
“I am, too.”

 

 

 

He doesn’t hear Alvin’s heartbeat for a while. He doesn’t hear it because Milla’s dead and Alvin’s gone and everybody he’d grown to care about was just as lost as he was and all that’s left is the empty space deep in his soul.  
  
But Jude’s heart didn’t beat much either these days, anyway.

 

 

 

It was calming when Jude did get to hear it again. It shouldn’t have been—Leia was injured off to the left and his skin was soaked with blood and sweat as he looked Alvin in the face, thighs tight around his hips as he punches him.

Over and over and over, hearing the _thud, thud, thud,_ of his gauntlets making contact with Alvin’s cheekbones, his jaw.  
  
Or maybe that was the sound of his aching heart. Of Alvin’s aching heart. Beating in sync with one another, and it was enough for Jude to break, falling against Alvin’s chest, crying into his scarf. He didn’t react, just laid motionless underneath Jude, his arms and legs outstretched.  
  
Jude didn’t know what to say, the silence broken only with his choked sobs. For the first time since he met Alvin, they felt like one person, like they belonged together, and it made him sick to his stomach.  
  
He still trusted Alvin. After everything he’d done, Jude wanted to believe in him because the truth was pounding in Alvin’s chest, desperate like Jude’s had been the first time they met.

“Your heart’s going a mile a minute,” Jude said.  
  
Reaching one hand up to run along Jude’s spine, Alvin whispered into the top of his head, “Danger will do that to you.”

**Author's Note:**

> as always, thanks for reading c;


End file.
